Mid-life Crisis Travel

A few years ago I was 39, divorced, my dog had died, and I had not yet started the busy travel schedule that I now love.  Needless to say I was just a bit depressed.  I was the one guest of a self-pity party, held in the privacy of my own home.  I had been thinking about getting away, taking some great trip.  Why not start at the top of the bucket list?  What would be the first item on the list?  For me there was no doubt that would be an African safari. The problem is that Africa is a huge continent with so many great safari locations, so the hard part was where and with whom?  For the last couple of years I had been half hardly researching locations and companies; it gave me something to do and made me feel better just to think maybe. 

On a particularly lonely Thanksgiving holiday I decided to “JUST DO IT” so I picked up the Thompson Safari catalog for 2007 to see what they had around my birthday.   Their classic safari was timed perfectly and also included some of the great wonders of the world: The Serengeti Plains, Ngorongoro Crater and Olduvi George.   I also added the Zanzibar extension.  If I am going to fly half way around the world I better make it worth it and see all I can.  Just the name Zanzibar evokes dreams of exotic travel in old colonial locations, where people actually sit on a veranda carved from exotic tropical woods with fans slowly turning above as they drink something cold with mint leaves while looking out on an old stone town with narrow streets, surrounded by palm trees that filter views of a sparkling blue ocean.  I called Thompson to see if they had space on this tour that was less than four months away and they did.  Normally they were booked nine or ten months in advance so this must be a sign.  Right?  I called my Dad because this is always something he has wanted to do also and told him I was doing this, he and Mom were welcome to come but not to worry I was going no matter what.  He hung up, talked to Mom and called me back in less than an hour to say they were in.  I wonder if that conversation went something like this, “Karen is going on safari and I have always wanted to do that too, so how about going with her?”  Or if it was more like this, “Karen is going on safari and there is no way I want her gallivanting around Africa by herself so we are going too.”  Either way, they went with me and it was nice to have them along. 

I spent many days reading over my National Audubon Society Field Guide of African Animals and at least a month piling up items on my coffee table that I did not want to forget.  We were only allowed one soft sided duffel bag that weighted no more than 33 pounds so planning the right wardrobe was quite difficult.  After packing, weighing, packing, and weighing again I was ready to go!  I flew direct from Seattle to Amsterdam where I met up with my parents and the three of us flew from Amsterdam direct to Kilimanjaro International Airport.  KIA is located in between Moshi and Arusha in northern Tanzania and is just at the foot of the great Kilimanjaro, the roof of Africa, the highest mountain in all of Africa.  I was excited to get to see this legendary mountain, but we arrived in the dark and immediately drove west and were so far from it the rest of the trip that I never did see it.  I flew 10,000 miles and never saw the greatest mountain in Africa. 

I walked from the plane onto the roll up stairway and I was greeted by a warm African night and the most wonderful sweet smell that turned out to be a mixture of blooming trees and burning wood.  I felt like I was coming home to a place I had never been! 

If I write one blog post on the entire trip you will be reading for days, or sound asleep in minutes, so I will break this up into the different locations that we visited…more to come…